Rising Moon: Into The Desert
by Snowy Mountain
Summary: Nick Fury: "You think you're the only superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe." But they never really expanded upon that. So I had to! Exploding from the pages of the Marvel Comics, the Macabre Moon Knight rocks the Marvel Cinematic Universe! And the MCU will never be the same!
1. Part 1

" _You think you're the_ _ **only**_ _superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe."  
_ —Nick Fury; _Iron Man_

" _The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of the evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper, and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will KNOW my name is the Lord when I lay_ _ **MY VENGEANCE UPON THEE!"**_ _  
_—Jules Winnfield; _Pulp Fiction_

* * *

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _The story is mine but the characters belong to Marvel Comics, a division of the Walt Disney Company. Gratuitous acts of violence, blood, gore, blood, mayhem, blood, death, and more blood ahead in future chapters!_

 _Oh and in case you didn't figure it out, this story is an AU of the Marvel Cinematic Universe._

* * *

Marc Spector was a mercenary and a paid killer who did unspeakable things in the name of money. And he was damn good at it.

But for one shining moment under the pale moonlight in the Egyptian desert, Spector tried to do the right thing under the watchful gaze of an ancient statue deifying Khonshu—the Egyptian God of the Moon and Guardian of Night Travelers. And was killed for it.

Then he miraculously returned to life.

Believing himself to have been resurrected by Khonshu as his Knightly Avatar, Spector assumed the God of the Moon's aspect to fight evil and for his own redemption. And now the Guilty will tremble before his wrath and the world will fear his vengeance … the Vengeance of the _**Moon Knight!**_

* * *

 **RISING MOON**

 _In The Desert: Part 1_

* * *

 _They call me crazy._

 _The realists. The rationalists. The petty and the small minded._

 _Because they look at me and they judge what they don't understand. They whine about what I do. They're afraid of me and piously proclaim about how civilized they are. How barbaric and loathsome I am. How dare I flout the rule of laws that they uphold._

 _But the truth of matter isn't that they're afraid of me. They're not afraid of what I'm doing. No, the truth of the matter is that they're the ones who are afraid of doing of what I do. What they_ _ **wish**_ _that they could do. If they only had the stomach for it._

 _Or the will._

 _But they don't. They can't. They don't see the chains and manacles that bind them. Confine them. Restrain them. Unseen ones that they created for themselves and locked themselves willingly into. The laws that they proclaim so dear to them. So narrow minded that they religiously interpret the letter of the law but have completely forgotten it's spirit. When the law stood for the just. When justice bespoke of an eye for an eye instead of fines, time served, and early release due to prison overcrowding and a revolving door. When the law was supposed to punish the scum and make them tremble in fear._

 _People want to know._

 _How can I live like this?_

 _How can I do the things that I do?_

 _How?_

 _I always feel like laughing at them. The small and petty minded. The realists. The rationalists. The ones who call me crazy._

 _The fact is that they—_ **we** _made this world. A society where criminals have more rights than their victims. Where it doesn't matter what you say or what you do as long as you're rich enough to buy off the right lawyers and judges. Where the liars and hypocrites and media whores flourish and fashion themselves as policy makers and bureaucrats. Where crimes are sanitized and white washed, lies are spun to sound bites. Where the corporations exploit the poor and weak in the name of profit and greed and get away with it all._

 _A world of glitz and glamor. Of fame and fashion. Built on the backs of ruined lives and blood money._

 _The truth of it is that I was no different than any of you. I was a willing participant to all of it. I worshiped the Almighty Dollar as my Gospel and looking out for only myself because I knew that no one else would. And so I forsake my conscience and whored myself out; I killed innocents in the name of whoever would pay me the most. And I was good at it. Too good._

 _I did unspeakable things. I destroyed innocent lives, I ruined good and decent men, and I did so with a song in my heart and gleeful skip in my step because of one simple truth. I got paid for it._

 _Until one blood soaked night in the desert, I was shown the stark truth. I saw the true shape of things. The ugly, bitter, twisted truth of it all._

 _That the world itself is crazy. And we had made it that way._

 _And for someone who is crazy in a crazy world?_

 _Well … they'd have to be the_ **sanest** _person on the planet._

 _The truth is that anything that is made can also be unmade. For those that say it's impossible to change things … it's not. Not really. It's simple laziness and unwillingness to upset the_ status quo _of what is. The truth is anything is possible. All that it is lacking is the proper motivation and the will to succeed._

 _And so when they ask how can I do the things that I do? How can I live the way that I do?_

 _The answer is simple._

 _How can I not?_

 _How could I live any other way?_

* * *

 **AFGHANISTAN  
JULY 11, 2010**

The door rattles and then the hinges shriek as it's shouldered open by one of the men. He is young Middle Eastern man, heavily mustached and dressed in rough but decently made clothing save for his military styled boots. He gives a quick and bored glance into the room and proceeds to enter with his companion—a near mirror image of his own dress save for a turban wrapped around his head—both of them are half-propping and half-dragging the third man in-between them.

The last man is dressed in the tattered remnants of Western business suit, stained with dirt and blood and other less recognizable stains. His arms are tied behind his back and a burlap sack is covering his head. He is slumped over, staggering and unable to keep pace with his captors who simply haul him around by sheer brute strength.

By common consent, they bring him to roughly the center of the deserted chamber and dump him like a discarded sack of waste. The captive man half tumbles to the ground with a pained grunt, falling to one knee. He struggles to rise and gets a jeering boot by the turbaned man, causing him to collapse to the stone floor with a muffled cry. He lies there, half-cringing in anticipation of a follow-up blow but the turbaned captor grunts in mocking laughter and wheels around to follow his companion out the door.

The door hinges shriek in painful sympathy as the door bangs closed and there is a sound of a rattling lock engaging before the captive gives out a whimper of relief and starts to pray once more for someone—anyone to help him.

No one answers. He starts once more to weep…

* * *

 **AFGHANISTAN  
JULY 14, 2010**

The air is hot and dry and still. All of the moisture has been boiled away. I stroll down the dusty street, absently noticing the puffs of dust created by all of the foot traffic. I stand out from the entire crowd which is filled with dark bronzed skins or overlapping burqas and head scarves. Not only am I at least a foot taller than most with my pale white skin marks me as a foreigner, my outrageous aloha shirt with neon pink flamingos adorning it and white khakis stands out in the subdued clothing of the crowds.

I pause, orienting myself and then stride towards one of the tented stalls. It is the only one that has aside from the cursive Arabic script, English lettering as subtitles. I remove my overly priced hat as I stroll under the canopy of the tent, and laboriously fan myself with it even as I moisturize my parched skin by splashing myself with water from my overly expensive plastic bottle of purified water from a foreign country.

"Whoowee, it's pretty darned hot here ain't it?" I remark with a disarming grin to the dark skinned Arab standing underneath the canopy of the wooden stall.

His eyes narrowed fractionally. I could almost feel the waves of scorn and anger at my flagrant wastefulness of precious water here in the parched desert landscape. Instead, he smiled a bit woodenly and agrees, "Indeed it is my friend," he said solemnly with a sharp nod. "How may I help you?"

"Just browsing. Lookin' for something for my girlfriend. She loves these quaint little knickknacks and touristy thingabobs!" I drawled and pick up a stone statue and peer at it intently. I made a slight adjustment of the wristband of the overly large and gold plated expensive Rolex to emphasize it's presence. As if he hadn't seen it already. It matches with the large, and incredibly gaudy thick ring with the glittering diamonds set in a monogram adorning the same hand.

"Ah, how thoughtful of you!" the merchant purred. He reaches under the counter and brings out a more expensive and gaudier collection of trinkets for him to unload on his new sucker.

I laboriously peer at the new tray of items and casually remove my sunglasses, "Man, you guys make some nifty bits," I drawl, laying on the Southern accent. I'm sure that he already knows that I'm a Westerner but it doesn't hurt to emphasize it. And it lets me get a glimpse at the mirrored reflection in the lenses to scope out my rear and identify the person whom my new friend here made that discrete handwave to.

 _Got 'em._ They appear to be a pair of idlers just sitting down at an outdoor café, sipping coffee but are now 'on duty', straightening up and getting ready. One of them quickly swallows the last dregs of his coffee and starts gesturing for the waiter for the bill.

I let the merchant talk me into buying three of the overly priced and cheap counterfeit gilded pieces. _What the Hell. It's only money after all._ I stroll out of the tent, whistling as I pass by the café, letting my peripheral vision track my two new shadows who are now standing and trying to casually stroll after me. I absently grin.

 _The art of fishing requires laborious preparation. It requires one to determine firstly, the location of where they intend to fish at._

An image of the tented stall with the English subtitled sign flashes onto my mind's eye.

 _It requires the proper outfitting of tools._

I grimace momentarily as I study the monogrammed diamond ring that is an offense to good taste and proceed to wiggle it onto my ring finger. If nothing else, it would leave one heck of a dent in somebody's jaw.

 _But most importantly and the most crucial is the vital last step:_

 _It requires live bait._

* * *

 _ **TO BE CONTINUED…**_


	2. Part 2

Marc Spector was a mercenary and a paid killer who did unspeakable things in the name of money. And he was damn good at it.

But for one shining moment under the pale moonlight in the Egyptian desert, Spector tried to do the right thing under the watchful gaze of an ancient statue deifying Khonshu—the Egyptian God of the Moon and Guardian of Night Travelers. And was killed for it.

Then he miraculously returned to life.

Believing himself to have been resurrected by Khonshu as his Knightly Avatar, Spector assumed the God of the Moon's aspect to fight evil and for his own redemption. And now the Guilty will tremble before his wrath and the world will fear his vengeance … the Vengeance of the **_Moon Knight!_**

* * *

 **RISING MOON**

 _In The Desert: Part 2_

* * *

 **AFGHANISTAN  
JULY 14, 2010**

Hassan bit back a curse as he and Farid lost track of their target. It wasn't as though the American was making it very difficult at his languid stride. However, it was almost as if the man was deliberately taking the most difficult and obstacle laden route he could! He started reciting his favorite Quran quote. _Have patience. Allah does not deny the rewards of the righteous._

He took a cleansing breath. _Calmly, Hassan,_ he thought to himself as he fingered the handle of the machete knife in his coat. For good measure, he quickly patted himself down to reassure himself that the other tools and weapons were in their appropriate places.

He smiled as he caught sight of that ridiculous eye gouging shirt that the American fool was wearing. _You see, Hassan? Allah provides._ He quickened his pace and gestured for Farid, Ghazi, and Rashid to follow.

 _It was almost time…_

* * *

My pair of shadows had not so subtly joined up with two buddies. As a professional, I was insulted at this amateurish operation. They were clumsy and obvious at best. To a trained observer, they might as well be waving signal flags and using flares.

I had half hoped that they were actually a false flag to misdirect me from the real strike team—that would excuse their sheer incompetence but no, they were disappointingly it. They almost lost me once or twice and I had to slow down and let my hideous outfit reacquire their attention. I started ambling towards my personal choice for an ambush site and hoped that my new friends would recognize it as one too. Otherwise it would be a real pain in the ass to lure them to another location.

 _It was almost time…_

Just then, I passed a mother swaddled in a heavy burqa hurried in the opposite direction, tugging a young girl wrapped in bright colors. The little girl was staring at my shirt decorated with the neon pink birds and smiled and waved at me, clearly unaware that she wasn't supposed to interact with Westerners.

I blinked.

 _A different little girl turned away, her eyes wide and filled with tears as her mother frantically tugged her while her other hand was clutching an infant to her breast._

 _I raised my hand and blotted my forehead with the back of my hand staring at the burning ruins of the village as several of the Arab soldiers were shouting and kicking down doors. There were the occasional burst of machinegun fire._

I blinked, suddenly back in the here and now.

I suddenly remember why I hate Afghanistan. Too many memories.

* * *

Hassan nods at Farid who has his trusty steel pipe in hand as they lean against the crumbling brickwork facing the sidestreet that their target has just turned down.

Hassan pulled out his machete. Large but just small enough that it was perfectly concealable. It was actually not that an effective weapon but it was great for sheer intimidation and actually sharp enough that when Hassan dug the point into Westerners' ribs, they quickly shut up.

They quickly whirl around the corner and go charging up the road and—and slowly trail to a halt, their heads whipping back and forth for the target. Who has disappeared.

Hassan fought to keep from screaming in frustration and rage. _Where had the target vanished?!_ The street was desolate and completely deserted. At the opposite end, he saw Ghazi and Rashid burst into view to close the empty trap.

He glared at them and got a baffled shrug and a shaking head in negation, proclaiming that the target hadn't gotten past them. _So where—_

There was a whisper of wind and a blur of white and suddenly, this _**thing**_ landed just a few short steps from Rashid and Ghazi. Before they could even react—it lashed out with a kick and Ghazi shrieked as his knee was savagely snapped backwards.

* * *

 _The use of 'Shock and Awe' is one of the greatest tactical advantages on the battlefield. Through sudden and overwhelming force, you momentarily intimidate your opponent into paralysis._

 _It's used by militaries, terrorists, and vigilantes to great effect. Just ask any of our targets._

 _But you know what's even worse?_

 _When the ambushers find out that their ambush has not only been anticipated and countered. And that the ambushers are suddenly the_ _ **ambushees**_ _instead._

 _As my four new walking targets would hereby attest._

I lunged forward, kneecapping the first scumbag and rose to my full height, raising my left arm and with a _**KLAK**_ , a large curved metal crescent extended itself from my upper gauntlet.

There was a _**CHUFF**_ from the pneumatic charge as the Grappling Dart shot out, trailing a glittering metal cable as it embedded itself into the brickwork of a building. Red telltale lights on my HUD changed to green when the piton anchors drove themselves in the surface and the built-in sensors indicated it had a solid grip.

I grinned as I triggered the overpowered motor reel. There was a _**TWANG**_ as the cable yanked me into the air, pulling me up at a steep angle. I made sure that my right arm was in position and clotheslined the second kidnapper and future meatsack. The cable groaned but took both our weight as we rapidly ascended. Five, ten, fifteen feet into the air—about twenty-five feet, I relaxed my grip and let him plummet to the ground. He shrieked all the way down before he landed like a sack of wet cement accompanied by a sweet snapping sound of his spine.

 _He was a young man, looked fit. He might even relearn to walk again._

 _In a year or three, with the help of a really good doctor._

 _And if I remembered to call for medical aid soon._

* * *

Hassan stared in shock and no little horror at how fast Rashid and Ghazi were taken down. Or how brutally.

The man in white—if it was a man and not some sort of demon reached into his belt with his free hand while still in midair and flung a trio of pellets at him and Farid.

The marble-sized pellets landed, bounced once and then exploded in a cloud of dense, milky white fog that enveloped them.

"WHAT THE—" Farid shouted and suddenly shrieked. The shriek was suddenly and abruptly cut off with a sharp **THUD**.

Hassan whipped his machete around as he tried to peer through the dense smoke that stung at his eyes. "Farid!" he hissed. "Farid are you there? What happened?" he said in a slightly louder tone of voice.

Suddenly he felt something sharp stab into his neck. "OW! What—" and abruptly, everything was spinning and he couldn't stay upright and— **WHUMP!**

* * *

I withdrew the truncheon tipped with the hypodermic syringe and with a twist of my wrist, the needle retracted back into the housing. I knelt over the apparent leader of the quartet and checked for a pulse. _Slow but steady. This latest paralytic drug payload was looking pretty good,_ I gave my mental nod of approval. Shame that the FDA doesn't accept testimonials from vigilantes conducting private drug testing or I'd have another fortune or two.

I tapped my earpiece and spoke into the pickup mike, "Knight One here. Ready for pickup."

" _ **Oui. Chariot rolling."**_

Casually, I wandered up to kneecapped thug and the only one still conscious. His shrieking had faded to gasps of pain as he clutched at his ruined leg. I gave him a swift kick to the head to render him insensate because I was a nice guy like that. That it got him to cease his incessant moaning was just a bonus. And I might have broken his jaw too. I didn't bother to check.

I heard the rumble of a truck engine and picked up my would-be kidnapper and hoisted him over my shoulder. There was a bit of delicious irony to kidnapping my would-be kidnapper.

The battered paneled truck came a stop a few feet away, it's engine softly rumbling. It looked like a wreck with peeling and faded paint, mismatched replacement parts and ends that didn't seem to quite fit, all with a thick layer of dust but it was all artful camouflage.

The extensive refitting had been even more expensive than the entire vehicle with customized equipment including a new larger engine, back-up batteries and fuel tanks, and quick-change flip license tags. The sagging body wasn't due to aging shocks and support struts as someone might assume but the fact that it featured heavy armor, soundproofing, and enough electronics that could outfit a Radio Shack.

I gave a nod to Frenchie in the driver's seat as I tossed the deadweight into the back and got in myself, sliding the panel door shut. Instantly, the truck chugged off. I busied myself by strapping my new bestie to a bed and began affixing various sensor feeds to him and adjusting their placement as although I knew the basics of first aid; I was not exactly trained for this and was working off cribbed notes.

I fiddled with a sensor, looking at the beeping lines on the medical diagnostic display screen which I pretended that I actually understood and toggled my radio, "Sparks, get me Sigmund."

" _ **On it, Boss man."**_

I waited a moment and then, I heard the polished and cultured tone of Sigmund filled my earpieces. _**"Considering that it is not yet time for your weekly counseling session, may I assume that you need my professional assistance then? So what is it this time? Profiling? Psychological Warfare?"**_ he remarked dryly.

"Interrogation," I barked out.

" _ **Ah, so you still haven't perfected the art of drilling holes into criminals' skulls and extracting their memories with digital probes then. I suppose this means that I will not need to start looking for a fallback occupation just quite yet."**_

"Didn't someone once tell me that sarcasm is a defense mechanism of a small and petty mind?" I retorted.

" _ **Yes. And someone also tends to forget his time zones and that not all of us are night owls and need our eight hours of sleep."**_

 _Finding a good psychologist is hard. Finding one with enough professional ethics to keep silent about my vigilante lifestyle while also assisting my extracurricular activities? Well, those requirements winnowed the selection process and it became nigh impossible._

 _Which left Dr. Francis Young aka Sigmund as unfortunately irreplaceable asset to my Shadow Cabinet. Which meant that I also had to indulge a good deal of nattering and pithy sarcastic barbs as Sigmund had long realized that gentle remonstrations had no effect on curbing my 'negative' personality traits. Not that sarcasm worked either but apparently it allowed him to vent his frustrations._

I ignored his latest tongue lashing _—Classic Avoidance Technique,_ part of my traitorous mind supplied helpfully with a snicker—and instead flicked a few switches, "Uploading Medical Diagnostics."

I waited for a moment as Sigmund confirmed reception as I examined my detainee impassively. His blink and pulse rate were increasing, signs that the fast acting but short term muscular relaxant and paralytic was wearing off.

He twitched and looked around confused and with no little hostility.

"Answer my questions truthfully and you will not be harmed," I informed the piece of human garbage in English, watching the readouts with one eye.

The wannabe kidnapper spat out a string of curses in Arabic. I waited a second and then gave him a sharp ringing slap. "It's adorable that you believe that you have a choice," I remarked in flawless Arabic, "and yes, my father was an ass but not of the donkey variety as you so quaintly put it and was indeed married to my mother."

" _ **Establishing a physiological baseline for comparison without physically stressing him would be most useful before questioning,"**_ my ever helpful nag blathered in my ear.

I grasped my captive's pinky finger and snapped it, causing him to scream in agony. I watched at the sharply and stridently peaks and dips in graph of the diagnostic monitor with vague interest.

"… _ **orrrr you could simply ignore that and resort to the 'terror' part of interrogation…"**_

"You and your men kidnap Americans! For money, yes?" I snapped. He ignored me, choosing to shout another string of insults. For that, I flicked his broken finger again resulting in renewed screams of pain. I repeated my question.

He nodded frantically, his sobs of pain petering out.

"Where do you keep them!" I demanded.

There was a pause and then he professed that he didn't know. That he was simply part of the snatch team and that he handed it off to someone else.

I inwardly sighed. Even I could tell that was a lie, maybe I hadn't needed Sigmund the Human Lie Detector after all.

" _ **Hmmm,"**_ Sigmund groaned in disappointment as he confirmed my own assessment, _**"That … was almost certainly a lie."**_

I could hear the dismay in Sigmund's voice as he knew what was going to happen. I decided not to disappoint him by grabbing the liar's ring finger and snapping it too.

I gave him a minute or two to get his shrieking under control. Then I grabbed his tear streaked face and jerked it so he was looking directly at me. I knew my blank white face mask with the glowing HUDS were unsettling because I could see the monitors twitch in response as I glared at him. "You prey on the misery and suffering of others. I have no mercy or compassion for filth such as yourself. I _**delight**_ in your pain and agony."

I let him absorb that.

"You will answer my questions truthfully. Because every time you lie … I … I will have no reason not to indulge my desire to hurt you."

For emphasis, I palmed one of my Night Sticks and waggled the special truncheon before him. His pupil noticed the movement and started tracking it. Once I was satisfied, I had his attention, I twisted it—causing the sharpened metal syringe to pop out of one end resulting in a gasp of surprise. I gently pressed it against the rim of his eye socket, causing him to flinch.

"And I assure you … I only need your tongue intact. Everything else is completely _extraneous,"_ I whispered meaningfully as I prodded the needle tip against the socket, almost but not quite breaking skin and getting a whimper of fear and the acrid tang of urine filled the cramped back compartment of the truck.

And then I started questioning him again…

* * *

 _ **TO BE CONTINUED…**_


	3. Part 3

Marc Spector was a mercenary and a paid killer who did unspeakable things in the name of money. And he was damn good at it.

But for one shining moment under the pale moonlight in the Egyptian desert, Spector tried to do the right thing under the watchful gaze of an ancient statue deifying Khonshu—the Egyptian God of the Moon and Guardian of Night Travelers. And was killed for it.

Then he miraculously returned to life.

Believing himself to have been resurrected by Khonshu as his Knightly Avatar, Spector assumed the God of the Moon's aspect to fight evil and for his own redemption. And now the Guilty will tremble before his wrath and the world will fear his vengeance … the Vengeance of the **_Moon Knight!_**

* * *

 **AFGHANISTAN  
JULY 15, 2010**

I stare out of the armored viewport of the _Eclipse Rider_ as it soared over the endless tracks of sand, a faint thrumming audible in the combat helicopter/VTOL as its vector thrusters and turboprops shuttered.

 _I hate Afghanistan. I hate it because it reminds me of_ _ **another**_ _place._

 _Another desert. Another land filled with endless dunes of sand and oppressive heat._

 _It reminds me of the man I used to be and not the man that I've become._

 _The dry and hot arid squalid piece of hell of where I died._

 _And where I was reborn._

 _Given another chance. Proffered redemption. A new life. A new purpose by my Lord Khonshu. A chance to repay my debts and equalize the scales._

 _Still … it is for that purpose for which I've come. Because a man is in danger. A man who needs my help._

 _But I still hate the desert…_

My earpiece buzzes, jolting me out of my contemplations.

" _ **Sparks to Knight One, come in Knight One."**_

I tapped my earpiece. "Knight One here."

" _ **Wiz hacked the US Defense Department and found archived satellite surveillance of the coordinates. Confirmation of a building there. At least fifty years old. Heavy construction. Not military-grade but darn close. No luck finding any kind of interior plans, archived blueprints, etc."**_

I inwardly nodded. Disappointing but not too surprising at the lack of hard data.

An aerial image pops up on my HUD. It's been cleaned up a few times and digitally enhanced but it's still blurry.

"Can you tell if Target: Hughes is there?"

" _ **Negative Knight One. This place isn't on US Intel's radar at all, they're concentrating all of their assets elsewhere. The Angels are prepped and are set to be deployed. We should have real time recon in … 20 mikes."**_

Twenty minutes. An eternity on the battlefield. The hostage has been held for well over a month. If they haven't killed him yet, the odds are low that his condition will change soon.

I scowled, flexing my fingers impatiently.

 _Still … twenty minutes. A lot can happen in twenty minutes…_

* * *

 **EGYPT  
JUNE 11, 1999**

Twenty minutes ago … I just saved his life. We were comrades in arms if not friends.

Now, we're at each other's throats.

Now I'm a liability. And Raul Bushman doesn't tolerate liabilities. Liabilities are to be eliminated. I cough and spat out a mouthful of blood as I glare defiantly at him as he sneers at me, the death head tattoos making him look like some sort of macabre jackal of death.

It's not enough for Bushman that I die though. No. I have to _**suffer**_ first.

The strangest thing is … that I don't regret it.

I must be out of my mind…

For a second, out of the corner of my eye I see something. A man … but not a man with a skeletal bird's skull standing on a dune of sand, wrapped in a white burial shroud and holding a strange staff topped with a crescent moon. The empty eye sockets burn as they stare into me… I blink and the apparition vanishes.

* * *

 **RISING MOON**

 _In The Desert: Part 3_

* * *

 **AFGHANISTAN  
JULY 15, 2010**

I padded down the short corridor and thumbed the hatch button, causing the bulkhead to slide open to reveal my would-be kidnapper and now detainee Hassan cuffed with plastic ties to several handy protrusions in the cargo hold.

After threatening to creatively find out how many body parts my detainee _**didn't**_ need to live—as it turns out that he was very much attached to all of his bits and pieces—Hassan had quickly broken down and had eagerly begun telling me everything and anything he possibly could.

Sigmund was convinced that Hassan was telling the truth and further self-appointed himself as my moral conscience and nagged me into promising to reward the fucking scumbag by letting him go.

To get him to shut up, I had agreed.

Unfortunately Hassan wasn't a member of the inner circle and didn't know everything. Hell, he didn't even know if their latest kidnapped victim was still alive. Further, he only vaguely knew the layout of the building and not even how many of his terrorist buddies were slumming it there.

I pulled out one of my Night Sticks and flicked it; an 8 inch carbon reinforced steel blade popped out of one end. I sliced off the blindfold and then the gag. Hassan flinched but he didn't otherwise react as I stared at him for a long moment. At this piece of filth that didn't deserve to be breathing the air like decent human beings. But I was going to let him go.

I had given my word to Sigmund after all.

The blade swung and removed one of his wrist restraints and then the other. Freed, he took a step back and started rubbing his chaffed wrists. With a twist, the blade retracted itself and I calmly replaced my Night Stick into one of the holsters.

Finally Hassan's nerve broke. "I tell you the truth! You—you let me go now yes?"

I gave a sharp nod. I withdrew a small oblong object from one of pouches of my utility belt and pressed the button on the remote key fob. "Yes," I said reverently.

The _Eclipse Rider's_ cargo bay doors cranked open and a howling wind whipped through the widening gap causing my cloak to flutter madly. Hassan blinked as suddenly the floor he was standing on began to lower, forming a ramp and he frantically fled forward only to run into my waiting boot that knocked him on his ass. He started to slide downward. His eyes widened in horror.

"NO! NO! You promised! You said you'd let me live!" he shrieked. His hands clawed frantically and he somehow found a seam that allowed him to arrest his descent.

I strolled forward and then placed my foot on the fingers of one of his hands and began to slowly apply pressure.

In a cold tone of voice I asked, "How many?"

I stared into his wide eyes, seeing the dilated pupils filled with fear.

"How many innocent people did you kidnap? How many travelers by night did you take? Ten? Twenty? Fifty?" I hissed.

Hassan didn't answer, gulping.

"How much did you profit from them! How much blood money from their loved ones for their safe release did you demand? Only to turn around and kill them?" I roared over the howling wind, slamming my foot down with all of the weight and force that I could muster. Hassan let out a cry of pain as he was forced to let go leaving him with only one remaining hand hold.

I gently placed my foot on his remaining fingers and began to apply my weight on them.

"YOU SWORE!" Hassan wept.

I paused, cocking my head.

"Yo—you swore you wouldn't kill me if—if I talked! I told you! I told you everything!"

I feel … a wave of coldness. I blink as I see the oh-so-familiar spectral falcon skulled apparition standing on the ramp—it's pure white burial shroud barely stirred in the howling wind. It's burning empty eye sockets catching my eyes and stared at me for a long moment.

The moment stretched and snapped as I looked away, taking a step backwards off of Hassan's fingers. "Yes. I did. I swore to my God that I would let you go and would not kill you. I swore it," I whispered.

I saw relief and joy on Hassan's face.

The malevolent skull headed specter then dipped it's gigantic raptor beak in acknowledgment and I smiled, a warm feeling filling me.

My leg chambered backwards and I kicked out, catching Hassan right on the chin causing him to fly backwards and out of the cargo hold, screaming.

"I said I'd let you go. I said I wouldn't kill you, you son of a bitch and I kept my word. After all—" I grinned wolfishly at the black speck of Hassan's falling form and finished the old hoary skydiving joke, "—it's not the _**fall**_ that'll kill you Hassan, it's the sudden stop at the end."

* * *

I stare out at the endless tracks of sand through the open cargo bay doors. At the dry and arid dunes of sand and oppressive heat.

A familiar sight. A sight that reminds me of the man that I used to be. But a sight that reminds that it was in a place like this was I was reborn.

The gibbous moon shines down over all of it. Over the desert. Over my destination. Over Hughes. Over the _Eclipse Rider._ Over Hassan's broken, shattered, and cooling body. Over even me. Especially me.

" _ **RED LIGHT!"**_ Frenchie announces over the intercom and the interior lights darken to a crimson poppy and begin pulsating.

Another night. Another chance to set things right. Another chance to balance the scales. One more time.

 _One more time,_ I vow.

 _One more time._

" _ **GREEN LIGHT!"**_

The cargo bay lights instantly flip from dark red to a blinding green. I take one step. And another and I fling myself out into the awaiting night.

 _Please._

 _Please Lord Khonshu. Give me one more chance…_ I plead as I plummet to the Earth.

* * *

The wind whistles through my ears as I freefall through the cold air. Glowing lines, numbers, and grids dance across my HUD as they update my altitude, speed, and location. I spread my arms wide and lock my legs into place as I triggered the hidden switch in my glove. I hear the micro-pneumatic pumps activate and the bladders in my cape swell and stiffen. The fluttering fabric twitches and then begins to expand, immobilizing the fabric in a prearranged crescent moon glider shape.

The built-in body harness jerks, the straps digging into my shoulders and thighs as my momentum was abruptly arrested. And then—I am no longer free falling but descending at a slightly slower speed.

My HUD flickered as the built-in auto-correcting GPS activated and began feeding me updated coordinates and wind direction and speed. I twitched, angling my body to course correct my trajectory as I paraglided down to the building that Hassan had indicated that he and his friends occupied.

I switched to infrared mode and surveyed the structure, confirming what the Angelwing Drones had already seen. No external guards. Furthermore, I wasn't picking up the telltales of electronic sensors or trackers.

 _Sloppy or confidence? Probably a bit of both,_ I decided as I banked towards the rooftop, steadily descending. I waited until I was a little over 10 feet above the surface before I vented the pneumatic pumps to the glider cloak, causing it to abruptly deflate and gravity seized me. I landed on the roof and tumbled to disperse my inertia and rose into a crouch, a pair of Night Sticks in hand and ready to counter an attack. No alarms, no shouting, nothing.

I waited a beat before rising and sliding one of the truncheons into its holster and approached the rooftop door that presumably allowed access to the lower levels. I pulled out a wireless microphone from one of my belt compartments and held it up against the door, dialing up the sensitivity of the audio sensor. No audible heartbeats, breathing, or footsteps within range.

Satisfied, I left the microphone attached to the door to keep an "ear" out for trouble while I bent down to examine the security on the door itself. Infrared wasn't cutting it so I switched out to normal vision and snapped on the tactical light mounted on my chest plate's moon insignia on low, just enough to give me a quick look with the low illumination.

 _Standard door lock, no wires or alarms—_ I brushed my fingers against the keyhole and snapped out the knife blade out of the end of the Night Stick and poked it through the gap between the door and the door jam around the knob, probing for deadbolts or locking bars— _huh._ I snorted in disbelief as I found absolutely no resistance or obstructions of any kind. _This was beyond pathetic._

Mentally shaking my head, I could not believe that bunch of amateurs had kidnapped Hughes like this. Still, it did make things easier for me. Even a small explosive charge to force open a reinforced door would have made a bit of racket and attracted attention. I fiddled with my gauntlet, extracting a set of lockpicks and went to work thinking that I had packed my new electronic codebreaker for nothing.

The tumblers were stiff as I fought to manipulate them, I suspected lots of sand and grit had worked their way into them and it further bespoke of disuse—a further indication of laziness on the part of the guards if they didn't even bother to secure or patrol the roof.

I grinned as I felt the _**klak**_ as the lock disengaged. I swiftly repacked all of my equipment and readied myself, taking a deep breath. Nothing could stop me now. I flung the door open and dove forward—slamming face first into a solid brick wall and falling backwards on my ass, momentarily stunned.

"Well shit," I muttered staring up at the moon shining down and mocking me…

* * *

 _ **TO BE CONTINUED…**_


End file.
